It is critical that small businesses start with the right components when establishing an online reputation A good online foundation contains the following four main components:a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a LinkedIn profile.

It is not necessary to create an elaborate website from the start. Five basic pages are all that is necessary to get started People should be able to find the business on the web, learn about the company, contact someone for customer service, learn about the products available, services or capabilities, and find the business in the "real" world.

A page on Facebook allows much of the same benefits as a simple website. Customers should be able to locate the business fan page, contact customer assistance, interact with the company, and share the facebook page with friends. Luckily, all of this is built into Facebook.

LinkedIn is commonly described as the primary social media place for business. A company should create a personal profile with information about the business. Each employee should reference the business in their personal profile and appear as an extension of the company

Twitter is a great resource for locating a wealth of information. Companies use Twitter to "tweet" small updates and to search for specific mentions of the firm, competition, partners, and anything related to the company's market.

Be careful to not let Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter become a full-time job. Establish a regular time to quickly look through the social media profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn. Create a few searches and lists to review related Twitter activity. While looking at each of the services, respond to any serious inquiries, share a personal comment, and share something useful.

Ok, now here's the secret -- Connect all of these items together! Over time, start to write a blog on the website. Simple automation will help push the blog entry to the Facebook fan page. The Facebook fan page can automatically send the information to Twitter. Connect Twitter and the blog to the LinkedIn account. With these "connections," a single blog entry is easily "pushed" to the three social media profiles.

This might sound like a lot of work, but it really isn't. The setup can be completed in a few hours with a little assistance or basic internet knowledge. After everything is completely setup, it doesn't take much time at all to write a short (but high quality) blog entry, quickly check the social profiles, and build a solid online presence.